


The Siren's Call

by Kit



Series: space and espionage; trenches, Victoriana and magical girls: genre and period AUs [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, deep space AU, self-imposed AU challenges, space has always scared the air out of me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 10:19:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4301007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kit/pseuds/Kit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“<em>Siren’s</em> learned ruthlessness with the rest,” Aveline says. “Stupidly human.”</p><p>(They always use that word. Humans and <em>human</em>, I mean. As if it means <em>person</em>.)</p><p>It's been many years since Merrill took up her place on <em>Siren's Call</em>, and now she's worried. Space is a very big sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Siren's Call

**Author's Note:**

> An AU request from [meghanvael](http://www.meghanvael.tumblr.com) on tumblr.

I’m terribly sorry, Ship, but…are you listening?

Whole families go first. Varric thinks it’s to do with connection, which is all very strange but almost sweet:  _Siren_  reaching out to one person, seeing through them to lover or child or sibling pair. Genes and predisposition.

That explains the Hawkes, that first year.  _Siren_ just picks a group makes it clean.

Is that bullshit, Varric? I think it is. It’s an awful thing to say, anyway. Everyone deserves the same amount of air.  

I  _am_  glad you’re still here, Varric. Still talking. More words every day. Ship likes them, I think.

Does it like to hear stories of itself as we move? Is it smart, letting go of sleepers the further out we get, where there’s less air between every star?

(I know there isn’t any air between stars. That’s what makes this all so marvellously frightening. But Sebastian said something like it once. He speaks well. Poetry. It’s all very lovely. Even when it doesn’t make any sense.)

“ _Siren’s_  learned ruthlessness with the rest,” Aveline says. “Stupidly human.”

They always use that word. Humans and  _human_ , I mean. As if it means _person._

Security suits Aveline very well. It’s all a bit peculiar. No one knows how Ship _knew_ , you see. There was no file. She was a refugee wife. Last to board. All very sad. Her husband died in stasis. Accidental, we think. It was before the air shortages. But Ship just woke her up, and people aren’t scared when she’s near them, no matter how much she glares.

Anders isn’t sure if he’s very relieved at the deaths, his medical supplies growing smaller and weaker as he cuts and mixes and nearly does magic, or if he is very close to screaming.  I think that’s doing something to him. A great injustice, deep inside.

“It’ll be me before you know it,” he says, words bitten off. “How does it _choose_?”

“Like the rest of us.” That’s Fenris, who is terribly clever. Terribly gloomy. But _terribly_  clever. His hands hands quick on maps he’s been learning since Ship woke him up, bruised and bewildered, half a memory gone. “Poorly.”

Sebastian keeps talking about souls.  _Siren_ has one, he’s sure. The ship has to, he says, after years of carrying us all and learning.

I know the Ship has at least one, but Sebastian always talks in  _sweeping_ sorts of stories that make some people very irritable, on account of the God bits.

(Humans are peculiar, Ship.)  

But Hawke smiles at Sebastian. The last Hawke, poor thing. I’m glad she has something to smile about. It really wasn’t fair, what happened to the dog.

Ship didn’t even write it down.

I did.

Ship, I miss you. The  _old_  you, I mean. The you that needed Isabela, but hadn’t got  _all_ of her yet. The you that let her walk around and laugh over silly hats, and kiss me sometimes. She loved my lab. She’d run her fingers over all my plants and say  _I_ was the magic thing, when she was the one steering you through time and space and dark.  

Does she still have a hat?

How can she, if she’s you now? It would blow away.

I’m sorry,  _ma vhenan,_ but please don’t get rid of me if you are angry. I grow rather a lot of our air.

(And I remember what you forget. Even when it’s people.)

Are you still there, Isabela? I wish you’d tell me.

Flash the lights. “Still here, kitten.” That isn’t hard code. Lots of longs and shorts. You could manage that.

Space is a very big sea, and it’s frightening without you in it.

 


End file.
